Dr. Angela Mazzone:

I thank the Senator for her question. I wanted to say something about her comment that sometimes teachers are involved in the phenomenon of discrimination. I have published research in recent years on bullying towards native and immigrant children and the reasons for bullying of native and immigrant children. We found that, according to the children's thinking, bullying towards migrant children is very much related to contextual factors, to stereotypes and prejudices that come from family, school, teachers and media. There is a process of learning prejudices and stereotypes concerning migrants which strongly affect bullying towards migrants. Interestingly, some of the children who were interviewed, who were first- and second-generation immigrant students, reported they experienced forms of discrimination from teachers as well and that sometimes teachers tended to underestimate their family background, and associated their national background with poverty and low skills and low school achievement. These findings suggest a whole educational approach very much needs to be adopted.

It is very much needed to tackle the phenomenon, by adopting whole-education approach, in the sense we need to educate children, teachers and the whole school system to diversity. I hope this answers the question.